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More admission that things are well-and-truly out of control.
This is a summary from the Extinction Protocol -
Exponential increase in cases
Bodies are buried, not cremated
Ebola has no vaccines or treatment
Ebola is rapidly mutating
The virus has spread to five countries across porous borders
Simultaneous outbreaks are occurring
The virus is reinfecting regions that had already recovered from the virus
The host(s) has not been identified
Top
Doctors: Ebola May Become Airborne … And May ALREADY Be
Transmissible Via AerosolsA
3
October, 2014
.
Michael
T. Osterholm – director of the Center for Infectious Disease
Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota – wrote in
the New York Times last month:
Viruses like Ebola are notoriously sloppy in replicating, meaning the virus entering one person may be genetically different from the virus entering the next. The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.
If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.
Why are public officials afraid to discuss this? They don’t want to be accused of screaming “Fire!” in a crowded theater — as I’m sure some will accuse me of doing. But the risk is real, and until we consider it, the world will not be prepared to do what is necessary to end the epidemic.
In 2012, a team of Canadian researchers proved that Ebola Zaire, the same virus that is causing the West Africa outbreak, could be transmitted by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys, both of whose lungs are very similar to those of humans. Richard Preston’s 1994 best seller “The Hot Zone” chronicled a 1989 outbreak of a different strain, Ebola Reston virus, among monkeys at a quarantine station near Washington. The virus was transmitted through breathing, and the outbreak ended only when all the monkeys were euthanized. We must consider that such transmissions could happen between humans, if the virus mutates.
There is a ‘nightmare’ chance that the Ebola virus could become airborne if the epidemic is not brought under control fast enough, the chief of the UN’s Ebola mission has warned.
Anthony Banbury, the Secretary General’s Special Representative, said that aid workers are racing against time to bring the epidemic under control, in case the Ebola virus mutates and becomes even harder to deal with.
Two Infectious Disease Experts Say Ebola In Its
CURRENT Form Is ALREADY Spread By Aerosols
But
perhaps most challenging to the mainstream assumption that Ebola can
only be spread through physical contact
with a person who is showing symptoms of infection is the
following explanation by
two national experts on infectious disease transmission, both
professors in the School of Public Health, Division of Environmental
and Occupational Health Sciences, at the University of Illinois at
Chicago (footnotes omitted):
We believe there is scientific and epidemiologic evidence that Ebola virus has the potential to be transmitted via infectious aerosolparticles both near and at a distance from infected patients, which means that healthcare workers should be wearing respirators, not facemasks. [Aerosols are liquids or small particles suspended in air. An example is sea spray: seawater suspended in air bubbles, created by the force of the surf mixing water with air.]
The important points are that virus-laden bodily fluids may be aerosolized and inhaled while a person is in proximity to an infectious person and that a wide range of particle sizes can be inhaled and deposited throughout the respiratory tract.
***
Being at first skeptical that Ebola virus could be an aerosol-transmissible disease, we are now persuaded by a review of experimental and epidemiologic data that this might be an important feature of disease transmission, particularly in healthcare settings.
***
Many body fluids, such as vomit, diarrhea, blood, and saliva, are capable of creating inhalable aerosol particles in the immediate vicinity of an infected person. Cough was identified among some cases in a 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and coughs are known to emit viruses in respirable particles. The act of vomiting produces an aerosol and has been implicated in airborne transmission of gastrointestinal viruses. Regarding diarrhea, even when contained by toilets, toilet flushing emits a pathogen-laden aerosol that disperses in the air.
***
There is also some experimental evidence that Ebola and other filoviruses can be transmitted by the aerosol route. Jaax et alreported the unexpected death of two rhesus monkeys housed approximately 3 meters from monkeys infected with Ebola virus, concluding that respiratory or eye exposure to aerosols was the only possible explanation.
Zaire Ebola viruses have also been transmitted in the absence of direct contact among pigsand from pigs to non-human primates, which experienced lung involvement in infection. Persons with no known direct contact with Ebola virus disease patients or their bodily fluids have become infected.
***
Experimental studies have demonstrated that it is possible to infect non-human primates and other mammals with filovirus aerosols. [Ebola is a type of filovirus]
Altogether, these epidemiologic and experimental data offer enough evidence to suggest that Ebola and other filoviruses may be opportunistic with respect to aerosol transmission. That is, other routes of entry may be more important and probable, but, given the right conditions, it is possible that transmission could also occur via aerosols.
In
other words, these two infectious disease experts believe that Ebola
is already –
in its current form
– transmissible via aerosols. They therefore urge all doctors
and nurses working with Ebola patients to wear respirators.
If
they're right, the government's assumptions about and strategies
towards Ebola are all wrong. At the very least - as the two experts
quoted above urge - all frontline healthcare workers should wear
respirators. And it may be necessary to consider travel
restrictions until
the epidemic is contained.
p
Ebola
Scare Hits Washington, Latest of About 100 Alerts to CDC
Days
after a person was diagnosed with Ebola on U.S. soil for
the first time, officials are reportedly investigating a possible
Ebola infection in Washington, D.C
sity
3
October, 2014
.
At
Howard University Hospital, a patient is in stable condition after
presenting with symptoms that could be associated with Ebola,
according to a statement today from the hospital. The patient had
recently traveled to Nigeria,
where the Ebola outbreak has killed eight people.
The
U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention is
working with medical providers to monitor the patient's progress,
officials said.
Officials
are also monitoring an inmate at Cobb County Jail in Georgia.
However, the initial blood test was negative for Ebola, according to
the Cobb County Sheriff's Office.
Though
the scares have put some on edge, the cases are not unique. After
issuing an alert to hospitals and medical providers in July, the CDC
has looked into approximately 100 Ebola scares in 33 states, as of
Oct. 1, the agency said.
Among
those, the CDC has tested the blood of 15 possible Ebola patients
and found
only one patient who
tested positive, according to Dr. Beth Bell, director of the
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious
Diseases.
That patient is Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man diagnosed in
Dallas.
"We're
striving for perfection, but what we continue to do is redouble our
efforts and ... use this as learning experience," Bell said.
Diagnosing
the deadly virus can be difficult. The early symptoms of the Ebola
virus, including fever chills and abdominal pain, are similar to
many other diseases and can be difficult to diagnose correctly.
After
a hospital or state lab identifies a possible Ebola case based on
both travel history and symptoms, they notify the CDC. CDC officials
then talk to someone familiar with the patient's history to
determine whether blood testing for the virus is necessary, CDC
spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told ABC News in an earlier interview.
CDC
officials discuss symptoms and determine whether the patient may
have been exposed to the virus. A person can be exposed to the virus
if they buried the body of an Ebola patient, lived in the same home
as an Ebola patient or was a health
care worker.
Dr.
William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert from Vanderbilt
University Department of Medicine, said it is not surprising that
only a small percentage of the patients investigated had a blood
test to check for Ebola.
There
are diseases that can appear similar to Ebola, but are far more
common in the West African countries of Liberia,
Guinea and Sierra
Leone where
the Ebola outbreak started, Schaffner noted. Doctors might end up
contacting the CDC before finding out a patient actually has fever
due to tuberculosis.
"You
have to be mindful this could be malaria or
typhoid fever. That's your job to sort all those things out,"
said Schaffner. "Your threshold for getting a blood specimen is
dependent on the answers to those questions. You kind of have a
decision algorithm in your head."
Schaffner
said he would not be surprised if there are a rash of new calls to
the CDC from hospitals or state labs in the next few days and weeks
in light of the intense media coverage of the first Ebola patient
diagnosed in the U.S.
"Having
all those inquiries come into the CDC are very, very indicative of
the fact that the medical care community are on the alert and
thinking about [Ebola]," Schaffner said. "It keeps all of
us on our toes."
CDC chief on Ebola: We can’t shut the border
The Extinction Protocol,
3 October, 2014
October 2014 – AFRICA – CDC Director Tom Frieden on Friday said restricting travel between the U.S. and West Africa would likely “backfire” and put Americans more at risk of contracting Ebola. Appearing on MSNBC, Frieden was asked about potentially prohibiting air travel between the U.S. and West Africa, where the Ebola outbreak is most widespread. He said that such a restriction would likely be ineffective and would make it harder for health officials to root out the virus. “The only way we’re going to get to zero risk is by stopping the outbreak at the source” in West Africa, Frieden said. “Even if we tried to close the border, it wouldn’t work,” the top health official added. “People have a right to return. People transiting through could come in. And it would backfire, because by isolating these countries, it’ll make it harder to help them, it will spread more there and we’d be more likely to be exposed here.” Frieden’s comments come as health officials continue to screen up to 100 people in Texas in connection with Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan, who is in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.
Duncan flew to the U.S. on September 19, but the CDC said that he was screened before his flight in Monrovia and showed no symptoms of Ebola. Health officials say his temperature was 97.3 degrees and that he was not contagious on the flight, meaning his fellow passengers were not at risk. While in Liberia, Duncan had contact with a woman who had the virus and carried her from a taxi, according to The New York Times. On Friday, Frieden said that airport screenings are reducing risks. “There are a lot of checks in place. It’s not perfect,” he said. In several interviews, including at a Thursday news briefing, the CDC director has expressed confidence that the health officials will be able to contain the spread of the virus in the U.S. On Thursday evening, NBC announced that a freelance journalist working in Liberia had contracted Ebola and quarantined himself on Wednesday.
–Politico
Family members of Dallas Ebola patient confined to home under armed guard
3
October, 2014
October
2014 – AFRICA – Four
members of a family with whom the first U.S. Ebola patient was
staying were confined to their Dallas home under armed guard Thursday
as the circle of people possibly exposed to the virus widened.
The
unusual confinement was imposed after the family failed to comply
with a request not to leave their apartment, according to Dallas
County Judge Clay Jenkins. Thomas Eric Duncan, 40, the first person
to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, had been staying
with the four, whose names have not been released. Texas Health
Commissioner David Lakey said the three-week confinement order would
help ensure the family can be closely monitored, including checking
them for fevers over the next three weeks. The family will not be
allowed to receive visitors, officials said.
A woman who lives in the apartment, Louise Troh, said she has been quarantined with her 13-year-old son and two nephews. “Who wants to be locked up?” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. She said she never imagined this could happen to her so far from disease-ravaged West Africa. She added that she wants federal health authorities to decontaminate her home. Liberia has said it will prosecute Duncan, who is from that country, for lying on a health questionnaire. A hazardous material crew arrived to decontaminate the apartment Thursday evening but didn’t have the required permits to clean and remove hazardous waste, city spokesman Richard Hill said. The crew, contracted by the county and state, would return Friday to complete the job. The family must be relocated before the cleanup can begin, Hill said. He had no information on where the family would go.
American Red Cross representatives delivered food to the apartment Thursday and the North Texas Food Bank said it sent cereal, tuna, produce and other supplies. Private security guards and sheriff’s deputies blocked the entrance to the 300-unit apartment complex to dozens of reporters. Texas health officials expanded their efforts to contain the virus, reaching out to as many as 100 people who may have had direct contact with Duncan or someone close to him. None of them has shown symptoms, but they have been told to notify medical workers if they feel ill, said Erikka Neroes, a spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services agency. The at-risk group includes 12 to 18 people who had direct contact with the infected man, including an ambulance crew and a handful of schoolchildren, she said. The others came into contact with that core group. –DMN
Now
that Ebola has hit the US the mainstream media is starting to take an
interest. When will they hit the panic button?
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